


Arithmetic

by Tea_and_roses



Series: His Butler, Observing Holidays [4]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Adult Ciel Phantomhive, Angst, Contracts, Exhaustion, Faustian Bargain, Grim Reapers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, New Years, New Year’s Eve, Shinigami, Sickfic, Tags: Sebastian/Ciel, Wingfic, adult!ciel - Freeform, major character illness, tuberculosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-10-10 06:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10430991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tea_and_roses/pseuds/Tea_and_roses
Summary: At the turn of the century, Ciel has become an accomplished but insatiable businessman, running himself ragged to demonstrate his superiority to not just rival companies, but even his immortal demon. When Ciel contracts tuberculosis, Sebastian faces a difficult choice on the subject of saving his master’s life.





	1. Ink

December 31, 1900

 

The numbers freshly inked into Ciel Phantomhive’s ledger had no business moving about the page. At first, when a four and a one exchanged places, Ciel blamed a crescendoing headache for making the figures appear to swim. But when a smudgily-penned nine vanished and reappeared as an immaculate seven, Ciel slammed the pen down on the desk.

“Don’t help me!” he snarled into the empty study. The words echoed uselessly off the library of books upon the walls. The embers of an ever-dimming fire in the hearth across the room made no response. However, the air surrounding Ciel’s desk became colder and darker, as though a fog had enveloped it, and with the shifting atmosphere came a voice, black and velvet.

“Despite your abhorrence of human limitations, my lord, I am afraid you are unable to carry on working with any semblance of success at this hour.”

Ciel said nothing. An exquisitely-dressed butler materialized beside the chair, the only sound a gentle rustle of fabric as he straightened his uniform by precise degrees. Sebastian’s unrequested presence infuriated the earl.

“I am occupied by my _work_ ,” Ciel snapped, seizing the pen he had discarded and pressing down with all but enough force to break the tip.

“You are ill,” observed Sebastian. “You would do well to occupy yourself with your _rest_.” The butler’s hands were clasped formally before him, one over the other. In contrast to Ciel’s ink-stained hands, the butler’s gloves were gleamingly white. With blackened fingers, Ciel purposely smeared retributive streaks of ink across the top of one gloved hand. Sebastian did not move.

“You are not to command me,” the earl said sharply, turning back to his ledger. “I can manage.”

“Even simple arithmetic, it seems.” Ciel stiffened, but did not respond, and the butler sighed. “You are suffering from exhaustion, among other things.”

“I have no time for baseless accusations, Sebastian!”

“Nor I for senseless deflections, my lord.”

“I am no longer a child you can usher away to bed.”

“No,” the demon agreed. “ _You_ are a man determined to die by tedium-induced fatigue, pouring valuable energy into nothingness.”

Ciel slammed to his feet, anger brimming. “THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING HUMAN!” he shouted, at a volume that could wake servants all over the manor. He wanted to throw a punch, or land a slap, but the tension seemed to have gone out of him. A violent, ill-timed cough interrupted.

“How very right you are,” said Sebastian softly. He traced Ciel’s cheek with a silken glove. “There is no reason to make yourself suffer so much, my lord.”

“Life is defined by work and pain and competition. What else would there be?”

“Perhaps that is an inquiry your lordship should explore.”

“I will not fail this company, Sebastian. What do you expect me to do, let the competition destroy me?”

“Ciel,” reproved the demon in a gentle voice, “you are not competing with your competitors, scribbling reports on ledgers late into the night. In a most peculiar and—if I may—misguided manner, you are competing with _me_.”

Ciel frowned, and coughed.

“You,” said Sebastian, kissing the earl’s forehead, “have nothing to prove.”

“And you’re immortal,” Ciel scoffed.

“A fact that directly elucidates why you happen to hold such allure.”

“Time is terrible,” the earl complained, as a clock chimed dully and naggingly at him from the opposite wall.

“Is that so?” asked Sebastian, in a voice low and rich and entirely missed by Ciel. “ _None_ of your time is spent in satisfactory pursuits?”

“It’s 1901 already tomorrow and I have nothing—I _am_ nothing—”

“May I?” The question caught Ciel off guard for only an instant, and then he nodded.

Sebastian tipped up Ciel’s chin, met his eyes in a way that quieted something deep in Ciel, and kissed the earl.

When Ciel opened his eyes a long moment later, the chiming clock across the room had finally stopped droning on, and Ciel was shadowed by glossy-feathered black wings and still wrapped in Sebastian’s arms.

“Happy New Year, Ciel.”

“You’re… yourself,” said the earl, blinking, exhaustion robbing him of articulate speech.

“Yes,” agreed Sebastian, shaking out his wings; the dark feathers encircling Ciel swayed gently. “I am just as my nature would have me. Do you object, my lord?”

“Of course not,” said Ciel, fingers tracing feathers along the underside of Sebastian’s arced wings. “I am, as ever, in awe.”

“As am I of you, my lord.”

Ciel broke into a violent cough that required his handkerchief and resulted in blood. This was a new development, and one that drew a reaction from him, finally. The widening of his eyes—if only for an instant—and the grimace upon his lips both bespoke a flash of fragile emotion, which was immediately buried beneath a scowl.

“You are badly ill,” Sebastian explained. “I have gone to great lengths to spare the servants from your infection these past days; I was at last obliged to send them to the countryside this afternoon.”

“I cannot see why _I_ should have this illness,” Ciel objected, piling layers of superciliousness over vulnerability. “I am no commoner. I do not live in filthy conditions like the masses. I—”

“You have plenty of contact with ‘the masses’ and their conditions, being the Queen’s Watchdog,” reproved Sebastian, whose knowledgeable explanations in the past had allowed Ciel a dismally advanced understanding of the disease. “Besides, you should know very well why; you are worn out. You have absolutely no regard for your health whatsoever.”

Perhaps the comment was excessively harsh, but Ciel’s reaction still felt unwarranted.

“GET OUT!” the earl shouted, and threw an inkbottle sheer across the room into the fireplace, producing a terrific and disastrously messy crash.

“As you wish,” said Sebastian softly, and vanished.

Ciel threw himself down in the chair, laid his head upon the work-littered desk and his folded arms, and cried in a way that was certain to ruin all his work in the ledger.


	2. Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7/8/17 - Have updated this second chapter to add a short but important scene at the end... And I'm excited to say that I'll be updating with the third, final chapter within a day or so!

January 1, 1901

 

Ciel Phantomhive, well-to-do earl and accomplished business mogul, spent New Year’s Day lying in bed, coughing up remnants of his lungs. The sunlight piercing his window was white-hot and sharp as a knife. A dull fever dimmed his grasp of everything but his own mortality; that, unfortunately, was thrown into harsh relief by overwhelming consumption symptoms.

The picture of Ciel laid up in his sickbed nearly made Sebastian ill.

“Your tea, my lord,” said the demon, his gaze upon the tea tray. He opened his mouth to begin expounding upon this particular variety—every speaking point from flavor notes to geographical origins meticulously prepared—but Ciel stopped him with a lifted hand.

“No need for description,” he murmured, accepting the teacup. “Not today.”

“I will leave you to your thoughts,” Sebastian assured, dipping into a graceful bow and trying hard not to be affronted that Ciel apparently preferred silence over the demon’s soothing voice. Before he could turn away, however, the earl grasped his hand—the one marked faintly with the original contract emblem—and stilled him.

“Use that voice of yours,” said Ciel sleepily, “to tell me something _useful_.”

“And what would be of use to you?” Sebastian inquired, his words silk-soft and alluring.

Ciel resisted the urge to demand fairy-tales, or sweet reassurances that everything would be painless and gentle and all right. There was no comfort in a lie. There would be solace in firm knowledge, however.

“Tell me how I die,” Ciel instructed. His voice was soft and measured, but without a hint of request. This was an order.

“My lord—”

“Sebastian.” Ciel’s tone was at once reproving and enticing. He was, after all, the one person Sebastian could not refuse (or, if the demon were honest, do without).

Sebastian smiled and stroked Ciel’s cheek with delicate fingertips.

“I am far from omniscient, my lord.”

“Do you really not know?” the earl asked, disappointed.

The demon shook his head.

In a smaller voice: “Can you find out?”

 _This_ was a request, and Sebastian felt a pang in his chest at the tone Ciel used. The young man was like a child again, dependent and mild. Sebastian sighed heavily, for he had no wish to acquire this piece of knowledge about his lord, unless with it came a means of preventing it. But he looked upon Ciel’s peaked and entreating face, turned up at him with lovely mismatched eyes, one still fadingly violet, and the demon found he did not have the resolve to say no.

When Ciel slid off into a badly-needed sleep, the demon put a mild hex upon the earl’s heart—one that would summon Sebastian instantly, should the young man’s heart rate increase—and set off to accomplish his once-master’s wishes.

~

Sebastian hesitated only a moment before rapping upon the door to the Undertaker’s shop.

The door flew open immediately, and the garishly-colored vision of Grell bloomed before his eyes, clad in scarlet from head to toe and grinning widely. Behind bright red spectacles, Grell batted exquisite lashes at the demon.

“Why, Bassy! What brings _you_ here?” The reaper's voice was rich and lilting as ever, but rather less lustful than usual. Sebastian was about to wonder why, and then caught sight of a notable set of love bites against pale skin.

“Grell? Is it one of my associat—” the Undertaker started to call, emerging from a back room. He was wearing his usual musty black robes, but the seams of his various visible scars were stamped all over with blaringly red lipstick.

“The great demon Sebastian Michaelis has seen fit to pay us a visit,” gushed Grell mockingly. “Can you believe our good luck?”

The Undertaker grumbled something that sounded very like “could’ve come at a _less_ lucky time if I had any say in it,” but nonetheless fetched a tin of bone-shaped biscuits from a shelf and thumped it down upon a dusty table. Whatever had happened to other parts of their shared quarters, Grell’s brightening influence and decorative tastes had had no effect upon his cluttered workroom.

“Have a seat,” he offered Sebastian gaily, gesturing with long black fingernails, and took up residence upon a shaky stool. “Grell will be of use to you, and is quite welcome to stay, so there’s no purpose making a fuss.”

The Undertaker’s uncanny knack for something—be it mind-reading, fortune-telling, or simply very good detective work—always caught Sebastian a bit off guard, even after all this time. In surprise, the demon woodenly accepted the wobbly chair he was offered at the little table. Grell dropped into a dodgy, cushioned wingchair nearby, arranged long legs to their best advantage, and waited.

The Undertaker’s bright eyes were shaded by pale, shaggy bangs, inhibiting eye contact. Sebastian mustered his courage, banished his pride, and put an inquiry into words.

“Even here, you must retain some of your powers. What can you manage on the subject of a human’s death?”

“Plenty, once it’s happened,” said Undertaker, and giggled irreverently. “But likely that’s not why you’re here.”

“Do you have the means to prevent the end of someone’s life?”

“We can _find out_ about a death,” Grell trilled. “Illegally, of course. Oh, it’s great fun! Sneaking into the library, opening powerful books that are _strictly_ off limits, for fear of reapers trying to—”

“So you can manipulate death.” Sebastian’s voice, seeking confirmation, was not quite guarded enough to keep out a hint of eagerness.

“Not for the sake of a demon’s broken heart,” Grell assured, legs dangling over one arm of the chair and boasting magnificently-heeled shoes.

“We could find out about them, though,” the Undertaker offered. “It _is_ handy sometimes to have a bit of knowledge about all that.”

“And if someone were to interfere with the event…?” Sebastian hazarded.

Undertaker thoughtfully traced and retraced a scar upon his hand, and was silent for a long moment. At last, he said, “If such an event has been written into the fabric of time, it would take a miracle for the interferer to survive the attempt.”

Sebastian smiled mirthlessly. “Well, we are neither of us deserving of a miracle.”

“What does the boy have?” the Undertaker asked, mentally fitting puzzle pieces together. “Not consumption, is it? If a body’s gone to rot, it’s no use trying to put a soul back into it.”

“Surely there is _some_ option—”

“Well, isn’t that just like a demon.” Grell sniffed. “No regard for the rules!”

Sebastian flashed a frown in the reaper’s direction, but the Undertaker was already smoothing the matter over.

“Now, there, isn’t as if you have a high regard for rules yourself, dearie,” he reminded Grell. “Poor chap’s having a bad enough time anyway, without us telling him why his madcap plan’s not going to work.”

Sebastian stiffened at the Undertaker’s assessment, which he had surely meant for the demon to hear, but collected himself for another round of persuasion.

“I will never trouble you again,” said Sebastian, “if you can only provide the particulars of his death to me—the time, the means, and his demeanor.” Then, recalling all the contract loopholes he had foisted upon hapless souls in the past, he added, “I must know at least a day before it occurs, to prepare.”

“May not be time for that,” said the Undertaker, prescient as ever, and the old contract mark on Sebastian’s hand was suddenly purple and glowing.

The Undertaker abruptly stood up, and tugged Sebastian close to whisper in his ear. “Tell his soul to fight beside you,” he instructed. “If the battle doesn’t destroy his soul, he can return to his body.” The Undertaker winked and added, “Perhaps something could be done about those lungs after all, depending on the week’s business.”

With that, Sebastian succumbed to the tug of the glowing sigil upon his hand, and transported himself back to Ciel’s bedside.

~

The earl coughed, and Sebastian stroked his hair and pressed a cool cloth to his forehead. The increase in Ciel’s heart rate had been due only to a start from awakening alone; Sebastian could barely contain his sigh of relief.

“I was startled to find you gone,” the earl observed archly.

“I am here now, my lord.”

Ciel prodded the delicate black seal imprinted over his heart and frowned. “What’s this?”

“Assurance, my lord, that I can be recalled to your side should you be in any distress.”

His patient relaxed back into pillows with a sigh. “I do not feel well.”

“I imagine not, my lord,” Sebastian agreed.

“Did you obtain the information?”

“I have made a definite effort, my lord, and one I expect to continue until it is resolved to your satisfaction.”

“Good,” said Ciel, nodding off again.

“If I couldn’t do that…” Sebastian murmured, and kissed Ciel’s hair.

But in truth, even if it could be acquired, the information alone was of little use.

~

Later that evening, Sebastian responded to a dramatic knocking at the entrance to the mansion. Upon opening the door, he discovered not a caller but a sealed envelope, with a stamp of bold red lipstick at the fastening.

Inside was a hasty note, in Grell’s sprawling hand:

 

_January 3 rd, 7:14 P.M., London_

_Consumption/suffocation_

_Resigned to death_

 

So the reapers had sought his information, after all.

Sebastian shuddered, and—resisting the urge to pitch the paper into the nearest fireplace—pocketed the note.

He spent the night curled up at the human’s side, in a most un-demon-like pose, thinking most un-demon-like thoughts.

~

The second day of the year came and went, and Sebastian lavished Ciel with attention and affection and treats and medicines, but the young man’s condition only worsened as the day wore on. Sebastian tried not to envision how ill Ciel would be come the following day.

When evening fell, the demon lit candles and climbed into bed beside him.

“You know, don’t you?” the earl asked.

Sebastian nodded, toying with one of Ciel’s hands admiringly. “Shall I tell you?”

“Is it terrible?”

“The hour approaches, but at the time you will accept it, if it does in fact occur.”

Ciel's eyes brightened slightly. “Is there a way to fight it, then?”

“Well,” said Sebastian, “it is said that you and I, at great risk to our true selves, may fight it when the time comes. But one or both of us may be harmed or destroyed in the process.”

“I cannot ask that of you, Sebastian,” said Ciel firmly.

“You needn’t ask at all, my lord. If the gamble is desirable to you, I would do anything to defend you, body and soul.”

“It is certainly a risk,” Ciel said, considering. “And the odds of our success…?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Perhaps it is better not to know, my lord. Although it must be said, you have an exceptionally strong soul.”

“I am not yet finished here,” Ciel said decisively. “Not with my body, or the world, or the work I would do in it.”

“Then you must fight beside me, bravely,” said Sebastian, kissing Ciel’s hair. “When the time comes.”

“Is it tonight?”

“No, my lord. Tonight, you must sleep.”

Ciel cuddled against Sebastian’s shoulder and allowed himself to drift off. Sebastian cradled the earl in his arms and made no mimicry of sleep at all. Rather, he smoothed away the tears that occasionally dropped upon Ciel’s hair as the night passed.

~

Behind a peculiar storefront in London sat a freshly-painted, scarlet-walled bedroom somewhere deep in the adjacent living quarters. There, brightly colored candles glowed warm against the darkness, and the Undertaker entered with a cup of hot tea for Grell, who lay in bed among stacks of silk pillows and primly read a novel.

“Why,” Grell sighed, behind gleaming red spectacles, “I hardly deserve you.”

The Undertaker simply giggled, then placed the tea and saucer on the bedside table. He began to turn away, but Grell caught him by the hand and laid aside the book.

“Darling,” Grell mused, examining the stitched scar that wrapped around his finger, “thrills aside, why help such an insufferable demon and that awful nobleman?”

“That’s a long and—” the Undertaker tittered as his hand was kissed, “—complicated tale.”

Grell raised neat eyebrows and waited patiently.

“Very well,” Undertaker conceded, nodding. He climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged near Grell’s legs. “If you can imagine it, dearie, for a few centuries a ways back I was just a regular old reaper. No notoriety, no legends, and a partner assigned to me. I didn’t always see eye-to-eye with him, mind you, and one night we were on a case, and there was this cinematic record going by. Lovely girl—an orange girl. Worked round the theaters. I’d see her and she’d wink and throw me an orange, even when I didn’t have the right type of money. I think she took a real liking to me. …Back in 1600, don’t get jealous!” he protested merrily, when Grell’s face darkened.

“Now, I could see where her soul ought to go, but this other reaper was set to sort it into the wrong place. So there was… let’s say, a bit of an intervention.” The Undertaker giggled.

Grell frowned behind crimson spectacles, managing to look both haughty and concerned. “You interfered with a reaping? Were you mad?”

“I was just doing what I thought a reaper should. So, the other reaper catches onto me and slices me up pretty deep all over with his scythe—a nice pair of scimitars, and sharp. I’m lying there, fit to die all over again, and next thing I know, this demon appears out of nowhere. Throws the reaper out of the way and clear out of the country. Takes the soul, too—had a contract with the girl that nobody knew about.”

“A decent reaper wouldn’t give up as easily as your partner must have,” Grell scoffed. “Demons or no demons.”

“It was the element of surprise, dearie, that did it. So I’m lying there, immortality leeching out in the street, and the demon stops and fixes me with the most curious look. Thought I was next to get kicked halfway round the world, and good riddance, the misery I was in. But instead, he whips out a needle and thread and stitches me up lightning fast, right there in the gutter. Great big stitches, all in a hurry, but still. I could hardly believe my eyes. Of course, later it turned out he wanted a reaper on his side to call in favors, but a debt’s a debt. Three centuries, he and I’ve been trading debts back and forth.”

“Sebastian saved you?” Grell traced the Undertaker’s scarred face and frowned. “But he took the orange girl’s soul.”

The Undertaker shrugged. “Still stopped me from dying.”

“You were very foolish to interfere with a reaping,” Grell chided, stroking his hair. “What if you hadn’t gone on to be such a legend? What if that were the end of the great Undertaker—dead in the gutter over some orange girl?”

“Justice is what reapers are born to do, isn’t it?” The Undertaker grinned.

“You were hardly being impartial.”

“Well, could be I was wrong, or could be impartiality wasn’t what the situation wanted. Sometimes a person just needs a friend, human or demon or what-have-you. Pretty strange, eh?”

Grell smiled into the cup of tea. “Perhaps not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I've made any glaring errors on the subjects of either Shinigami or tuberculosis, please forgive (or inform).  
> If you notice characters being sweet and OOC... well, it was probably intentional.  
> Thank you for reading!!


	3. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7/9/17 - Updating with the final chapter at last! I've also added an important new bit to the end of Chapter 2, so if you only read the original post, you may want to check that out. Thank you for reading!

January 3, 1901

 

Sebastian was unusually quiet as he poured Ciel’s breakfast tea. There was none of the butler’s customary blathering on about culinary trivia, nor any of the demon’s self-righteous, tongue-in-cheek jibes. There was simply silence, punctuated by the occasional delicate clinking of fine china.

“ ’ Quiet,” observed Ciel. It paid to be especially terse when one’s throat felt aflame and one’s lungs were in a frankly shocking state of disrepair. However, Sebastian barely seemed to notice the sniping; the butler came to from some sort of reverie with only a polite, noncommittal hum. Ciel coughed to remind Sebastian to take pity on him and at least make an effort to listen. The cough turned out to be significantly more gruesome than Ciel had intended.

“Forgive me for allowing you to thoroughly occupy my _thoughts_ instead of my attention,” retorted Sebastian when the coughing had been attended to. “I am well aware that I was not speaking, my lord, but I would be glad to resume if you prefer it.”

Ciel blushed and considered coughing as a diversion. Given how well it had gone the last time, he attempted to drink some tea instead. Sebastian had to help him steady the cup, which smelled troublingly un-tea-like. The earl promptly concluded that the drink was not tea at all.

“It’s water,” Ciel complained hoarsely, fixing Sebastian with an appropriate glare.

“It’s what you need, my lord,” replied the demon, barely holding back a sigh. He was sitting on the edge of the bed—most unprofessionally if anyone wanted Ciel’s opinion—and his expression was equal parts frustration and ill-concealed panic. Concern was hardly a good look on someone as almighty as Sebastian ought to be.

“ ’m going back to sleep,” Ciel announced, closing his eyes against a world in which he was too ill to drink tea. He hoped Sebastian knew how much he loved the demon. It was not Sebastian whom Ciel wanted to shut out, just everything else, especially the unacceptable likelihood that this illness might very well part them forever. Ciel found Sebastian’s hand without opening his eyes, clumsily traced the edge of the fading contract symbol from memory, and made an effort to fall asleep. Sebastian delicately lifted and kissed Ciel’s hand before returning it.

 

It was not lost on dozing Ciel that Sebastian was avoiding both leaving his side and so much as looking at anything in the room besides the earl.

When food arrived for luncheon without the bedroom door opening or any other discernible sound effects, Ciel realized that Sebastian was also disobeying an old order that he usually honored, even if Ciel’s orders had not been binding for years; the demon was using his powers to take shortcuts, instead of doing everything by hand. Gourmet food did not otherwise appear on trays without so much as a click of one’s fingers.

Ciel feigned oblivion to this new development, despite an overwhelming sense that if Sebastian were this desperate, the clock was running dangerously low on time. Whatever would the Queen think of her Watchdog, if she were privy to his thoughts on this deathbed? Wishing for more time, wishing for less uncertainty, wishing for more cups of tea, more sunsets, more gunfights, more sappy-sweet moments of unremarkable domesticity with a certain demon, who was presently making a determined effort to serve him soup.

“No,” rasped Ciel firmly, hoping that Sebastian understood this to be shorthand for ‘Thank you—it smells delicious, but I’m afraid I would not care for that particular dish this afternoon.’

Sebastian apparently did not translate this correctly, for he looked rather crushed.

“My lord,” he cajoled, “you would do very well to keep up your strength.”

Ah—Sebastian was actually disappointed because the hour was drawing near and he was afraid, not because he was affronted by Ciel passing up his cooking. As occasionally happened, Ciel was struck by an absurd urge to comfort the demon.

“I’ll be ill,” Ciel warned, relenting.

“You need only make an effort,” Sebastian promised.

“Fine.”

The soup was excellent, though Ciel barely registered that fact on account of managing his incessant coughing alongside the task of eating. He was only attempting the soup to appease Sebastian, after all; he was long past the point of taking any pleasure in food, however good.

The afternoon fell away, strange and quiet and dreary, and for tea Sebastian served warm water once again. With effort, Ciel refrained from commenting on this affront to his natural patriotism. He supposed a demon could not be expected to understand such things as tradition and ritual and love of country. Anyway, whenever he glanced at Sebastian, he found he did not want to burden the demon any further; Sebastian’s knowledge of what was to come was clearly taking a toll on his usual façade of impenetrable confidence.

Clocks chimed away the afternoon’s many hours, some dully languid and others jumpily anxious. Seven o’clock came and went, and still Sebastian had done nothing to prepare the bedroom against the impending evening.

“It’s dark,” Ciel complained.

The butler managed to light seventy-three candles around the room and a fire in the fireplace without so much as blinking. Ciel sighed.

“Properly,” the earl hissed. “Go close the curtains. It looks depressing.”

“My lord—”

“Be _normal_.” It came out much like begging, which was regrettable, but Ciel was resolute. “You’re making everything too intense, just staring.”

Sebastian sighed dramatically but rose to do the earl’s bidding.

 

Three minutes before the quarter-hour chime struck, and just as he reached the curtains, Sebastian found himself ensnared in what could only be a trap painted on the floor and cleverly concealed under the rug. He attempted to turn back toward Ciel and found that he was not immobilized, simply confined to a circular bit of floor space. There was no going above or below it, either—the perimeter had him perfectly enclosed on all sides. Sebastian bent to move aside the rug and perhaps make inroads on whatever substance had been used to paint the markings, but naturally the trap prevented him from reaching through its confines to the actual floor.

The butler guise was dropped at once; Sebastian was himself, wings rather crushed by a bubble-like shroud of invisible walls and ceiling.

“What in the world?” Ciel demanded from bed.

“Ciel,” said Sebastian precisely, breaking a rule as they were certainly not both in bed, “I will require your aid to undo the trap. Now. This very minute.”

“I didn’t set any trap.”

“Nonetheless, you must come here and damage the paint. At once, or—”

Ciel reacted as though Sebastian had lost his mind. “Sebastian, I can’t even move! And I _didn’t set any_ —”

“No,” agreed Sebastian, as the clock ticked forward and Ciel slipped into a fit of uncontrollable coughing, “your reaper did.”

 

“Well, well,” tutted William T. Spears, entering the bedroom by its door without fanfare at the same moment. He reflexively adjusted his glasses and neurotically consulted the handwritten book he carried, just to be sure.

“Yes, Ciel Phantomhive it is.” William glanced at his watch and muttered in approval. The time was 7:14, as corroborated by the clocks about Ciel’s bedroom. “Precisely on time. Very good. No overtime.”

“Don’t be—so—sure,” spat Ciel, around the edges of the coughing spasm.

“Give up, pest,” William bid him, and the death scythe shot forward at the earl’s heart.

“Go to hell,” Ciel snapped, before the scythe touched his chest and he fell limp.

~

“This is _hardly_ any of our business,” grumbled a lilting voice outside the bedroom window.

“You can’t say this isn’t a good bit of fun, dearie.”

“I seem to recall a promise to not bother us with any further favors, and yet here we are, scrambling up a wall—”

“If you hadn’t taken so long choosing such a stunning pair of shoes, my dear, we wouldn’t be in such a rush to get there.”

Fortunately, reapers’ senses were a bit dull, so William was still unaware of the scene unfolding somewhere just outside the bedroom window.

For his part, Sebastian hoped that the Undertaker could actually read minds after all, and through exterior walls. In case this failed, though, he tapped out a message with the toe of one heeled boot. _H-E-L-P. T-R-A-P._

Grell heaved a sigh. “Honestly, Morse code? It’s the 1900s, for goodness’ sake.”

And then the reaper smashed through the window.

~

William T. Spears was at an absolute loss as to why the cinematic record of the young man lying lifeless before him was not unspooling before his eyes. There were merely twelve seconds left to this minute in which the young man was scheduled to die, which would have been plenty of time for William to come to a decision about his soul, if only the record would get started. The beginning seemed to be jammed.

“Stop _fighting_ it,” he ordered.

If the face of the body sprawled before him twitched into a hint of a smile, surely it was only an optical illusion. Anyway, no soul was strong enough to battle a reaper of William T. Spears’ experience level, which was precisely why he had assigned himself to the case of Ciel Phantomhive. That man was a menace whose removal from earth would be a blessing.

William’s attention was entirely upon his wresting with the cinematic record—using the end of his death scythe rather messily at this point to get things going—when without warning, he was launched sideways by something immortally strong. There was a blur of ink-black feathers and a flash of what appeared to be black leather, and then William T. Spears’ own death scythe slashed at him, inflicting a grievous wound.

~

The world stopped turning, and Ciel Phantomhive’s stately, elegant bedroom fell away, along with its array of flickering white candles, the chattering encouragement of two rogue ex-reapers, and the un-breathing, un-bleeding body of a young man with a torn-open chest.

Sebastian found himself washed in an exceptionally powerful outpouring of light that should have been unbearable and just bordered on it. Despite the fact that his senses were oversaturated beyond use, he determined he was suspended in air, somewhere high above the earth’s surface. Possibly somewhere outside of time and space, although the image of William T. Spears nearby suggested that bodies were permitted.

A little ways away and spread in a sprawl, William’s body lay, mending slowly and visibly. Sebastian absorbed this knowledge by instinct rather than sight.

“You cannot kill my reapers,” a voice informed Sebastian, possibly without actually speaking in a catalogued language.

“He would have taken my—” (what on earth was Ciel? No longer master, far more than friend, purer than lover…) “—reason.”

“You introduce hurt you cannot imagine into the world by detaining this reaper.”

“The pain he caused was much the same.”

“You wish to disrupt the order of a world to save one man. But that world is fallen and finite, not boundless. His body and time are currencies already spent.”

“I will repay of myself any costs to restore him.”

“You are good,” the voice praised, warm and pleased, “but the price is high.”

“Take me.” Sebastian lowered himself into a slightly more subservient position, wings spread. “Strip away the trappings of this form—my wings and my powers—and reduce me to a simpler body and the core of my being, if that is the cost.”

“You would trade such portions of your true self?”

“Everything that is mine to barter.”

“Good.”

Sebastian felt his wings and his supernatural abilities leave him, as though carried away in a consuming wind. The only power left within him was his spark of immortality, which gleefully informed his spinning mind that the exchange had been made. Ciel would live.

However, in return the butler would no longer be able to summon and shift and manipulate the world around him, with the exception of using his physical body. He would be far more like to a person—body and mind and spirit—than to a demon. The body he could keep for eternity, for he was still not truly mortal, but the abilities that he had possessed in his full form would be forfeit. The fiercer version of Sebastian, armed with flight and inhuman efficiency and natural weapons like fangs and talons, was necessary collateral. Sebastian had no regrets on this count.

An instant later, his powers and wings snapped back into him, forcefully.

“No!” Sebastian protested fiercely, in the same wordless language. “I surrendered these intentionally for my cause. I do not want them back.”

“The suffering from your act of sacrifice alone was sufficient.”

“Then I will not be permitted to fulfill my offer?”

“You have. Your quick willingness was worth as much as another’s reluctant endurance of the full events. The balance is repaid.”

Before Sebastian could fully process this assertion, everything began to shift. In a rush, the light world cascaded away, and Sebastian became aware that he was again standing in Ciel’s candlelit room, and that the flesh of Ciel’s chest was still laid open. Grell and the Undertaker remained where they had stood; no time had passed since the moment Sebastian had spent tackling William, who was now conspicuously missing from the scene.

Sebastian approached Ciel, and gently closed Ciel’s flesh back over the un-bleeding wound where William had attempted to violently extract his soul. The butler was about to use his newly-recovered powers to summon the materials necessary for a good-quality suture, but then the strange injury appeared to mend itself, healing instantly.

As Sebastian removed his hands, Ciel opened perfectly coherent eyes and sat up with a yawn and a melodramatic stretch.

“You’re freed,” Ciel observed, blinking. He cleared his throat, and evidently realized that his respiratory system was restored to perfect functionality. “I’m well. What on earth did you do?”

On earth, nothing, Sebastian mused, but he kept such details to himself.

“Why, saved you, my lord, body and soul. As promised.”

Ciel had leapt out of bed and flung appreciative arms around Sebastian’s neck before the butler could quite process what absurd event was happening.

“Thank you,” Ciel whispered almost inaudibly. It would likely have caused a lesser being with any knowledge at all of Ciel Phantomhive to faint.

Sebastian, however, remained upright with the assistance of counterbalancing wings, and gathered Ciel into his arms gratefully.

“I did have essential and rather unlikely help,” Sebastian conceded, which stopped the two ex-reapers from slipping back out the shattered window. “We’re terribly indebted, I’m afraid.”

Ciel glanced over to find Grell and the Undertaker, of all beings; comprehended at least a piece of what had happened; and marched up to them with an extended hand.

“If there is anything the Funtom Company or I personally can do to express my gratitude for today, please tell me. You have my sincerest thanks.”

He shook hands with both reapers, began mentally plotting various ways he might begin to make it up to them, and did not complain when the reapers had left and he realized he was standing in a spray of broken window glass with badly bloodied bare feet.

At least, he did not complain immediately. Sebastian was about to worry about him when the earl exhaled with exaggerated petulance.

“What kind of butler would endure this quantity of glass on his master’s bedroom floor?” Ciel demanded. His voice was harsh, but his eyes were merry. “I might also ask what kind of lover lets his partner stand around with cut-up feet full of glass and makes utterly no effort to remedy the situation.”

“Oh, my lord,” said Sebastian, sweeping Ciel up into his arms and carrying the earl to the edge of the bed, bleeding feet and all. “I’ve missed you.”


End file.
